Windows Protection Error in NDIS with a CPU That Is Faster Than 2.1 GHz

Microsoft wants money, but I don't have any - all I want is the fix they claim will allow me to run Windows 98SE on the new faster hardware (my new CPU runs at 3.4Ghz with 800 FSB). Does anyone know where else this fix may be available for free?

Here is what Microsoft writes on their page which you may reach as follows:

Windows Protection Error in NDIS with a CPU That Is Faster Than 2.1 GHz

This article was previously published under Q312108

SYMPTOMS

When you are installing Windows 95 or Windows 98 on a computer that has a CPU that runs at 2.2 gigahertz (GHz) or faster, you may receive the following error message:

While initializing device NDIS: Windows protection error

CAUSE

The timing calibration code in the Network Driver Interface Specification (NDIS) driver causes a divide by zero if the CPU runs at 2.2 GHz or faster. This problem does not occur with CPUs that run at 2.1 GHz or slower.

RESOLUTION

Windows 98

A supported fix is now available from Microsoft, but it is only intended to correct the problem that is described in this article. Apply it only to computers that are experiencing this specific problem.

NOTE: In special cases, charges that are ordinarily incurred for support calls may be canceled if a Microsoft Support Professional determines that a specific update will resolve your problem. The usual support costs will apply to additional support questions and issues that do not qualify for the specific update in question.

The English version of this fix should have the following file attributes or later: Date Time Version Size File name
---------------------------------------------------
28-Nov-2001 11:05 4.10.0.2000 157,909 Ndis.vxd

Is that fix available for free somewhere else? Are these speed problems not well known?

Telling you where to get something M$ charge for for free is in contravention of the member agreement....

Have they actually said they will charge you? If you have the specific problem referred to in the KB article, they don't usually charge. Like it says 'NOTE: In special cases, charges that are ordinarily incurred for support calls may be canceled if a Microsoft Support Professional determines that a specific update will resolve your problem.'

JohnT

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brnbrgAuthor Commented: 2004-09-17

Jthow - I started hollerin' and scream'n, so some lady at the Wintel monopoly gangster outfit, also known as MS, gave me a link to their "private" download of the MS hotfix for FREE! FREE - would you believe it! Now - it is, of course, well hidden, so that you have to stumble over about 1,000 links to upgrade to Windows XP, but I got the fix from MS for free. Sorry, had to give the points to Zee.

Zee - you really know Windows 98SE - I'd like to know why you do not get on the XP bandwagon with the rest - the tech guys at ASUS can't believe that I am so insane as to run Windows 98SE on their latest motherboards with Raptor RAIDs and all. Very soon, you and I are the only people running 98SE, ha, ha - I like that.

Am I really insane or is my approach to run Windows 98SE on fast hardware intellectually defensible? It does precisely what I need under incredible stress and time constraints, until I can get an income from having finished developing a certain system. For me to now having to learn a new OS may push me to the brink, it may be financial suicide, because some key software simply did not run readily on a colleague's XP Pro PC and I would have to learn new software and replace an entire portion of years of work.

What am I to do? Would you begin slowly with PC#2 as a XP Pro machine, but then I will lose my instaneous backup, which saved my behind as you can see now (I am writing all this on the backup PC#2 while PC#1 is mortally wounded with motherboard failure and some of its parts will be used later in a rebuild for a new PC#2). So, if I successfully build PC#2 as a XP Pro machine and it all runs again flawlessly there, I could then copy it to PC#1 and have 2 XP Pro PCs in the same manner as I was keeping two 98SE PCs to date.

I am weighing the slow migration to XP Pro against waiting for Microsoft's "Next really bug thing", oh, I'm so sorry - it is, of course, the next really big thing, namely, the true 64 bit OS. In that case, I would be bypassing XP altogether, pretty much along the lines of Brian Livingston of Windows Secrets fame, because XP is too close to 98SE and does not offer me a single functional advantage in my rather highly complex work. From posting my web to heavy e-mail collaboration with graphics, there is nothing that XP has to offer for me, except having to learn a whole new set of bug fixes and patches - that is a tremendous loss of time with nothing in return for me.

Is my strategy viable? Would you also wait for 64 bit, or am I taking a risk by trying to leapfrog over XP Pro?

Also, would you install the fix MS finally gave me for free or the fix you pointed me to at sjordan.com?

AFAIK, the fix is the same. But if you got it from MS use that. No doubt.

I don't have any PC with WinXP (blush...).

My feelings are quite similar to yours, but I will soon take the step forward and install and run WinXP.

And IT IS a step forward.

If the work you're doing in your current PC(s) is sensitive and valuable, yes, you must do it step by step.

And you will have to do it sooner or later. And it always feels better if you're doing from your own will.

Good luck.

Cheers,

Zee

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brnbrgAuthor Commented: 2004-09-18

"And it always feels better if you're doing from your own will" - FEELINGS, oh what FEEELINGS - My God, if I only could sing like B.S. or even know the lines to the song...

But there is deep wisdom in your statement, and it will be a lot more than feelings, because if I did it on my own and in advance of a collapse or a hurdle that cannot be overcome, then I stayed a step ahead.

And staying a step ahead is basically the key to survival (ok, I'm a naturalist and watch mainly the raw stuff on Animal Planet and Discovery Channel).

My only problem is that XP is full with bugs, just like anything else and I haven't found a single function it can do that 98SE cannot do AS FAR AS MY NEEDS ARE CONCERNED... and if you'd see what pressure I'm under w/o an income for a while already to develop a certain product with which to make a living again, you'd ask yourself, too, whether you even had as much as one second of your time to learn yet another set of idiosychrasies, bugfixes and workarounds - and for what? 64 bit is around the corner and all that labor goes right into the garbage.

But you're right - of I get stretched or can't use a certain service with 98SE, I may have to do it - learn all that totally useless and meaningless detail...

And it makes me feel good (FEELINGS!) that there is at least one guy as insane as I am, and on top of that you know a trillion times more about computing because I am so stuck with the mathematical complexity of what I am trying to develop, no time to learn anything.

Nicest thing about EE is the community, the spirit - I am very grateful for all the help...

Sincerely,
Bernard

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brnbrgAuthor Commented: 2004-09-25

Zee,

I bought only 512MB memory, first, because the ASUS tech guys thought that all the recommended work-around fixes for Windows 98SE memory management may never work right, and secondly, because the half gigabyte memory sticks were on sale and cose only a third of the 1 GB sticks.

Would you still recommend I enter the changes you gave me in the other question & answer thread from the other Windows protection error into the system files - or do the physical limitations of having ordered only 512 MB of memory make those points mute?

1) MS Tech swares that there is no hotfix for speed for 98SE, only for 98 - and it turned out that my 98SE zooms right along even at 10% overclocked at 3.73 GHz and totally stable at standard 3.4 GHz (I guess, one more reason for you and me, the last 2 users of Windows 98SE, NOT to switch to XP)

2) 137 GB remains the hard disk limit, sadly... The 20378 Promise chip set made the 2 WD 74GB Raptors visible to Windows 98SE, but then defrag could not run - said it was out of memory. When I broke the RAID 0 array C: drive up into a 80 GB and a 63 GB drive, all was well.

3) I did not even dare mess w/ memory over 512 MB because of all the scary stuff I read and really do not need it.

4) USB 2.0 drivers supplied by ASUS w/ the P4C 800E Deluxe mobd, combined w/Intel update/hotfix for Windows 98SE gave 98SE even a native, mobd based hi-speed 480 Mbps native USB 2.0 8 ports - what more can you ask? I certainly don't need anything else from a computer right now, hence, I am hard pressed to switch to XP - here is my philosophical point: There will be 6 months to 2 years of learning utter crap about the shortcomings and other bugs of XP. By then true 64-bit computing will be here - so, why not just jump over XP? I did the same with 95 - people were killing themsleves over getting that to run correctly and I had an easy time with 98SE comparatively. Maybe this hi-speed solution with Office 2000, all the graphics & Outlook I need, will tidy my over to 64-bit...

BTW, now it's really flying - and I am not kidding, because I see the slow as molasses PCs of my colleagues despite expensive hardware and alleged "better" memory handling - one guy quickly runs out of memory with ordinary tasks with 1 GB of expensive memory. With the ConservativeSwapFileUsage parameter, TClockEx now shows large chunks of memory returned when I close a lot of apps in my Windows 98SE, which it would not do before. Also, to burn it in, I have accumulated some 55,000 Webshots photos in what is for the system a most vicious screen saver, which, if it is running perpetually, quickly tests whether that system is stable. I cranked the speed down to "standard" 3.4 GHz, because once loaded, everything is so fast that it is just stupidity to run at 10% or 20% overclocked - for what? Instantaneity is just that - even if you could crank it up to 100 GHz... So, for the first 2 days I quickly did some of my ordinary research with Webshots running, and so far not even a flicker from this machine - STICK WITH INTEL, THOUGH... such easy riding was NOT available with different chip sets and AMD boards! Today I'm going to do the backup PC (with a cheaply bought P4P 800E Deluxe from ASUS, 3.0 GHz and some leftover pair of ATA 133 Samsung 40 GB each 7,200 RPM hard drives and Ultra 512 MB memory - all cheaply bought - whatever was on sale) and then I'm going to also report back to you how IE6 installs over IE5.5 (didn't have time for that yet, hope I won't have to retype all those passwords again...).

Sincerely,
Bernard

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brnbrgAuthor Commented: 2004-10-25

Ah - not all is really well in the kingdom... The IE6 installation went flawlessly, but no matter what I do, Windows Explorer now opens only with the laft pane collapsed, meaning that I have to expand manually the C: drive before I can view the folders every time I start Windows Explorer. This is not only 1,000s of clicks for my injured hand (explosion accident survivor - 4 years in the hospital, 62 operations, lost one eye, cornea burned & scarred on the other eye, both hands quite hit), but also a risk, because I have 3 more mirror drives in this PC for 3 days back instant backups. The SATA RAID is so fast that I may open accidentally a folder on the wrong drive if I am tired or work too quickly. I fiddled around with Folder Options "Remember Each Folder's View Settings" for an hour as well as with all the file associations etc. - no matter what I do, there is no way to make Windows Explorer open with the C: drive expanded - it only opens with all 4 drives collapsed.

The 2nd item is strange, too: When logging on to mail.com, I now have to enter the password twice, although I enter it correctly the first time. I checked the password field - there is nothing there - and my IE6 works really well with complex sites such as VistaPrint.com, so, I don't know what this is with mail.com, either. It's a little lame, probably because it may be a little bigger, but if it is so much "better" or safer - look, I just do not have the time to be really good at this, I barely survive now, because my research is too complex. If I find more quirks, I'll let you know.

The 2nd item is solved: I deleted the memorized ID and password for mail.com, retyped them and the problem went away - I have no idea why it did this, because I always use saved ID and password for that logon - how could than be suddenly corrupt - but it was.

I am just disappointed if I have to accept that the Windows Explorer will now only open with the C: drive in collapsed format - I still could not get that to be as before. Everything else worked ok sofar, though. All this + my work delayed installing the 2nd "budget" PC (still pretty good hardware). I had really stupid problems with fonts missing - must have been from other graphical programs, so that Word and Outlook then showed these fonts in their format window, now I need them, have to track back what I had installed etc., stuff like that, but I'll report back on my dual PC setup soon.

By the way, one of my colleagues also switched to IE6 and also cannot get Windows Explorer to launch with expanded C: drive any more, so I 'm apparently not alone with this construct as a consequence of an IE6 install.

/root,[object] Specifies the root level of the view. The default is to use the normal namespace root. Whatever is specified is the root for the display.

/select,[sub object] Specifies the folder to receive the initial focus. If "/select" is used, the parent folder is opened and the specified object is selected.

explorer.exe /e should do what you require.

JohnT

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brnbrgAuthor Commented: 2004-10-27

John: I played with the settings, but /e opens Windows\Desktop by default for some strange reason & so far I could not get any combo to open ,/C:\ although that was how I found it after I installed IE6 - it just would not open root in the folder pane to the left.

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brnbrgAuthor Commented: 2004-10-27

The great advatage of having a 3rd, old PC: They all were set to /n,/e,/C:\ but the 2 older ones run IE5.5 and there Windows Explorer opens with the left Folder pane exanded. The first new PC with IE5.5 did that, too. Only after installing IE6 it showed root on the right in the file window, but did not expand C:\ in the folder pane any more.

So, I assume from the other 2 older PCs that /n,/e,/C:\ is the correct setting - it does everything exactly as before, except that I now have to expand the + sign in front of the C: drive manually. Is there another superseding setting, such as in a .ini file or the registry?

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brnbrgAuthor Commented: 2004-10-27

One more factoid from the insane asylum: Even if you leave any attributes out, the 2 older PCs still show C:\ as they do WITH the /n,/e,/C:\ is settings - and it is interesting to note that exporer opens FASTER without any settings. Unfortunately, the same holds true for the new PC post IE6 install - removing all settings C: is highlighted, but NOT expanded, I can only turn that + into a - manually...

Now, that is odd. If I leave out the /e parameter in my shortcut, explorer starts 'restored down' at My Documents. With it in, it starts maximised at C: In both cases, the folder tree is expanded. It's IE6 with all the patces applied.

JohnT

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brnbrgAuthor Commented: 2004-10-28

Is there no other superseding setting, such as in a .ini file or the registry?

Don't think so. Explorer's default is supposed to be that the root - or selected - folder is opened expanded.

BTW, if you want quickly to expand an explorer tree, you can press the asterisk (*) key on the numeric keypad. (Might save you some mouse manipulation....)

JohnT

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brnbrgAuthor Commented: 2004-11-01

Man, you guys know stuff... On the high-speed machine the asterisk (*) key on the numeric keypad really flies, it is noticably slow on the old PCs. Every little bit helps when you're messed up like I with parts of my left hand missing and parts of my right hand are stiff... Thanks again!

John, Zee did not want to accept the points I gave him prematurely, thinking he had solved my problem of opening the explorer as we were discussing here and asked to re-open an extra thread I had opened: